


More Than A Monster: An Orochimaru Meta

by WhiteLadyDragon



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Commentary, Gen, Meta, Morally Ambiguous Character, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Rants, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteLadyDragon/pseuds/WhiteLadyDragon
Summary: My attempt at providing a more thorough look at one of the most controversial characters in the franchise (who is also my favorite), and a rebuttal of some common fanon interpretations of him. If you're a fellow fan, please enjoy! If you are not, this is an invitation to re-examine the character.





	More Than A Monster: An Orochimaru Meta

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in response to someone else's commentary on Orochimaru's character, but also in response to my frustration with the fandom's general reception and treatment of him. You can access the original post here: https://super-kame-love.tumblr.com/post/184383869466/a-response-to-a-super-old-orochimaru-meta. 
> 
> Prior to this, I wrote a separate post refuting the popular joke/headcanon that Orochimaru is a sexual predator (which I'm sorry I had to do to begin with), which I've incorporated into this commentary. You can see that post here: https://super-kame-love.tumblr.com/post/184099649366/x-3
> 
> Manga scans come from MangaPanda.com, except for the excerpts from the Mitsuki oneshot which come from MangaStream. I also recommend reading the scans from ReadNaruto.com, from which I got the pages for Chapter 154.
> 
> I promise this is not just a character shilling. 
> 
> Please note that while I encourage further discussions on the points made in this essay, I will only engage with constructive criticism made in good faith. I will not tolerate thoughtless, rabid hate toward the character, the creator, the series, or my opinions, all of which is what I set out to refute in the first place. At the very least, agree to disagree!

So, the #orochimaru tag on Tumblr has lately become a dumpster fire of hate and vitriol, and it’s making me sad. And mad. Sad-mad, you might say. (Smad?)

I get it. Orochimaru is not for everyone. You have the right to post what you want on your own blog. You have the right to draw whatever you want, and you have the right to spend your money commissioning any kind of art you want.

But the rabid hate clogging up the tag right now is…discouraging. At the very least, it’s annoying and frustrating. Why are you wasting time, money, and energy hating on a character when you could have better spent all of these focusing on a character you like, instead? And why be a jerk to people with different opinions from yours, while you’re at it? You are not going to change our minds that way. Well, you’re not likely going to change our minds at all—no more than we can change yours—but you’re definitely not going to do it that way. Don't cross-tag your hate, please. The "#anti-x" tag exists for a reason. That's basic etiquette. 

Most of the hate isn’t even for the right reasons! I mean, if you’re going to hate Orochimaru, hate him for what he’s actually done: human experimentation, stealing bodies, manipulating traumatized orphans into doing his bidding, being a general rhymes-with-ick who ruins everyone’s day, et cetera. And if you do choose to hate him for these things, make sure you aren't being hypocritical about it; as I mention later, other characters who happen to be fan favorites are guilty of a lot of the same things Orochimaru does. 

Don't hate Orochimaru for things you think he might have done based on pure conjecture.

All too often, he gets written off in this fandom as either a sex offender or a stone-cold one-dimensional psychopath. Or both. The former never fails to give me rage flu. I'll be tackling it first as it won't take very long. The latter is going to take much more analysis.

So, getting straight to the point: Orochimaru is NOT a sexual predator. I thought this dumb fanon came and went in the 2000's, but it’s apparently been resurrected (or maybe it never really left?), and I have no idea why. There’s no evidence for it in the manga outside of his really poor word choice when talking about snatching bodies for new vessels. To him, people’s bodies are more like new armor with power-ups attached to them (e.g., Sharingan, Shikotsumyaku), like avatars or items you unlock in video games or something like that.

That doesn’t make his obsession less objectifying, mind you. It certainly doesn't make it less disturbing. It’s just not objectifying or disturbing for any _sexual_ reason. If he was, say, openly drooling over Sasuke like how Jiraiya does over Naruto’s Sexy Jutsu, or like how Karin does over Sasuke upon seeing him injured, then maybe you’d have a point? But that’s not what’s happening. If we take off the shipping goggles, he never shows romantic or sexual attraction of this nature to _anyone_ in the story, never mind his younger followers. The word choice thing and the tongue thing are awfully flimsy as evidence, if you could count them to begin with. Which you can't.

And the thing he does sometimes in the anime, touching people’s faces and all that? Completely absent in the manga.

Anko cuts Naruto’s cheek prior to starting the scroll test in the Forest of Death and then she comes up behind him to lick the cut. If I really wanted to, I could use this as evidence that SHE might be a sexual predator. But I won’t, because it isn't evidence. By itself, it doesn’t prove anything other than that Anko is weird and has a wild and mildly sadistic streak, not unlike a crazy big sister who occasionally bullies her younger peers.

The tongue thing Orochimaru does should be treated the same way. It’s a quirk he does anytime something new or exciting happens, one that fits in with his snake motif, and one that he seems to have dropped after the Fourth War. The only time we see him put his tongue on someone is in the context of battle, namely an attempt to strangle Tsunade with it. 

Jiraiya drools over Naruto’s Sexy Jutsu and seems to forget every time Naruto pulls it out that it’s a henge performed by a teenage boy. Also, he spies on women in the baths for “inspiration.” But again, we are given no evidence that he’s touched Naruto, or any other kid, in any way he shouldn’t. We also have no evidence that he’s ever forced himself on a woman, otherwise. In fact, he doesn't bother to take advantage of it when Itachi casts a genjutsu on a woman to make her flirt with Jiraiya and lure him away from Naruto (though he does initially take the bait). His peeping is gross, for sure, but based on what we’re shown, that’s all he’s guilty of.

Mei, the Fifth Mizukage, who is about twice as old as Sasuke, uses flirtatious language with him in their battle at the Kage Summit. She calls him "handsome" and expresses regret for having to kill him, but offers to "give him a kiss" before that. In contrast, Orochimaru once remarks about Sasuke being "beautiful" to Anko, but he never says it directly to him, nor does he ever come on to him like that. 

Hiruzen's hobby is stated to be "talking to young girls." It's not stated anywhere how young he likes them. For all we know, the girls he talks to could still be adults, just much younger than him. But that definitely should raise eyebrows. Even if Jiraiya didn't get his own lechery ALL from him, it's safe to assume having Hiruzen as an influence encouraged it.

Karin displays an explicitly sexual attraction to Sasuke, who happens to be around her age and who happens to be one many fans accuse Orochimaru of lusting after, that she doesn’t exactly hide. However, except for the few times she gets in Sasuke’s personal space without his permission (whereupon she does back off fairly quickly), we have no indications she’s ever acted on her fantasies about “ravishing” him or “licking him all over.” The worst that can be said about Karin is that she has poor social skills and equally poor emotional regulation, both of which seem to have fortunately gotten better by the new era.

To clarify, I am NOT saying that Anko, Jiraiya, Mei, Hiruzen, or Karin are sexual predators. I enjoy all these characters (you'd be hard-pressed to name a character from this cast that I dislike)! I am merely pointing out the lack of logic in calling Orochimaru a sexual predator when other characters have acted more demonstrably in ways that could get THEM labelled as such if this fandom had any kind of consistency. They'd still be wrong, but at least they'd be consistent.

It’s true that Kishimoto has gone on the record to say that he envisioned Orochimaru early on as flamboyant and possessing “a powerful aura.” However, he’s never said anything about Orochimaru’s sexuality or gender identity, and I highly doubt he meant anything malicious or problematic when he worked on Orochimaru’s design. After all, he said adding flamboyance was a "guiding principle" when creating most of his villains, not just Orochimaru. Orochimaru is a villain who happens to not conform to gender norms; he isn’t a villain _because_ he doesn’t conform to gender norms. That’s the difference. 

It's funny how for all our criticism of queer-coding, homophobia and transphobia in media, some of us are still buying into it at the expense of the only confirmed LGBTQ+ (non-binary) character in the franchise—who, by the way, has at the time of this posting been considerably redeemed by the writers…or at least as redeemed as I think he possibly can be. Not only that, but in asserting that the claim “Orochimaru is a sexual predator” is canon, we’re also indirectly asserting that this series—a shonen appealing to all ages but written mostly for kids and that takes a lot of inspiration from the _Dragon Ball_ and _Dragon Ball Z_ franchises—endorses or excuses pedophilia and sexual abuse.

Which it doesn’t. It doesn’t even address it.

Can we please stop inserting sexual abuse into canon narratives where it doesn’t exist? I’ve been noticing that a lot lately, all this talk of honeypot missions and pederasty, plus the thing with Karin’s ability to heal people by having them bite her that gets taken out of context. I’m not going to defend the cringey jokes that crop up in the series (coming mostly from Jiraiya), except say that that’s likely all they are: jokes.

The only reason I can think of for why people are bringing in these pieces of fanon is that real-life shinobi sometimes did honeypot missions, and pederasty was practiced in Japan until the 19th century, mostly by monks of certain religious sects and the warrior class. Then again, any ties _Naruto_ has to reality are loose at best, and there is zero evidence of these things being a common occurrence in-universe. What else on earth would give you the impression Mr. Kishimoto had any of these things in mind when he wrote his story?

And why are you mainly, if not only, applying these ideas to Orochimaru?

If you want to write a dark AU that incorporates these elements, that’s your right and your business. But don’t insist that they’re canon. There’s deconstructing a concept in an independent transformative fan work with appropriate tags, and then there’s making canon needlessly darker and edgier, thereby making the space less comfortable for everyone else.

Now that that's out of the way, let's turn our attention to his other fanon interpretation. IS Orochimaru a complete monster?

I'll have to say...no, not exactly. A superficial reading might give us this impression, but the same can't be said with a closer look. Even if Mr. Kishimoto had once described him in an interview very early on to be "hopelessly evil," he clearly changed his mind about that as the story progressed. And even before Orochimaru's turnaround, there are details scattered through the manga that call that claim into question.

Before I start, let me make clear that I’m not here to excuse or whitewash any of Orochimaru’s crimes or sins. I’m not here to tell you he’s a good guy. Of course he is a villain, at least initially. No sane fan would tell you otherwise. But I’m not going to carry on too much about them here, either. Everyone else has done enough of that for me. There's nothing new to add about how terrible his crimes are. It's a proverbial dead horse, at this point. It's deader than dead.

Is he selfish, manipulative, obsessed, egomaniacal, amoral, creepy, and in possession of sociopathic tendencies? Yes. You’ll never hear me argue otherwise. But a complete unfeeling psychopath? No, I don’t buy that. The point of this essay is to look at his actions and personality a little more in depth. Hopefully, by the end of it, you'll see what I'm talking about. 

I don’t suppose I can objectively argue the quality of how his character development is executed, since the beauty of writing is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. I would like to point out, however, that _Naruto_ establishes its idealism fairly early on and is mostly consistent about it to the end, especially with its major themes of forgiveness and redemption. Yes, the story goes to unrealistic lengths to enforce these themes, but as I said, any ties the manga has to reality are quite loose to begin with. The parallels exist so the story can resonate with us, but it also, and mainly, follows its own rules. It’s pointless to try to analyze the story, or its characters, too closely through the lens of our reality. 

Moreover, it's been my observation that many fans are looking at the story through the lens of Western philosophy and trying to make sense of it that way. That is another common mistake in fandom discourse. Of course it’s not going to make sense, because it was never written with Western sensibilities in mind. It lines up more with Eastern culture and philosophy. Eastern schools of thought, like Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism, have a less black-and-white view on morality and ethics. Instead of damnation/salvation, reincarnation is the name of the game. It’s entirely possible for people like Gaara, Neji, Kabuto, Sasuke, Nagato, Obito, Madara, and yes, even Orochimaru, to find redemption of some kind, because everyone eventually will…even if it takes them many lifetimes to do it.

Besides, if you really think about it, there are no real “pure” characters in the Narutoverse. There are no purely good guys, and no purely evil guys, either. What we’re really looking at are characters wearing varied shades of moral gray–some happen to be darker, or lighter, shades than others. Not even characters like Sakura, Hinata, Yamato, Konohamaru, Iruka, or Naruto himself are truly pure characters. Even if we ignore each’s personality flaws, they are all still ninjas: soldiers and mercenaries. Even if we don’t see it on-panel, every one of them has likely had a hand at killing people, at one point or another.

Does this mean we have to throw out the baby with the bathwater? Of course not! I didn’t get into this series for its ideological purity. I’m in it because of how gloriously messy it is. It's like real life, if only in that respect. Messy and clumsy (it is a fighting-focused shonen, after all), yet ultimately optimistic. It treats many of its villains rather sympathetically. Not all of them, of course, and some are treated more sympathetically than others, but most of them. The story doesn’t hide the fact that most of their motivations have to do at least somewhat with the injustices and brutality of the world. For a story that emphasizes the importance of empathy and letting go of hatred, a lot of its fans seem to have missed that.

Oops! I got off on a tangent. Let’s return the focus to Orochimaru.

Personally, I find it dangerous, or at the very least lazy and unhelpful, to label everyone, real or fictional, who does evil things as “inhuman.” They ARE human. That’s what makes their actions so disturbing and horrifying. All the experimenting Orochimaru does on himself does not erase his core humanity.

The nature vs. nurture debate should be imagined not as a spectrum, but rather a Venn diagram with lots of overlap. How much overlap exists between nature and nurture is still a mystery and probably always will be, but it’s safe to say there’s a lot. For Orochimaru, I argue that it’s both. There is probably something organically different about him that causes him to perceive the world around him and interact with it in the ways he does. Iruka, to give just one example, also lost his parents to violence when he was young, and he still grows up to be a decent man and a fair teacher. Naruto, for another example, grows up not knowing his parents at all and shunned by his village for something he couldn’t control, being the jinchuriki for the Nine-Tails. Yet he grows up to be a hero and beacon of hope.

There are all different kinds of trauma, and everyone responds to trauma differently. Some respond to it better, or worse, than others. However you might think or feel about Orochimaru, you can't deny he is indeed traumatized. That he responds to it in nearly all unacceptable ways doesn't mean the trauma itself doesn't still exist.

With that said, I doubt there’s anything special about Orochimaru’s lineage that could explain anything. I know how tempting it is to say so given his looks, but if he came from a special clan or anything like that, I’m sure Mr. Kishimoto would have said something about it in the story, as he does with everyone else who comes from a prestigious clan or family. I have to admit that it’s one of the things I enjoy about Orochimaru: that he came up from, for lack of a better word, nothing.

It becomes one of the things Sasuke throws in his face in Chapter 344.

Oof. Sasuke may be talking up the Uchiha a bit too much, but he’s right about everything else. Orochimaru really is just putzing around at this point in the story, and at everyone else's expense. While he does enjoy and seek out power, he's not looking for world domination. He never did. He only wants to learn everything there is to know about the world and jutsu, by any means necessary. His quest for immortality serves to meet the former end, and to ward off death. These motivations have been carried to their logical conclusion, to our horror and ultimately his detriment.

It's no different than what Itachi does to his and Sasuke's family, or at least based on what Sasuke knows at the time. According to Itachi himself, he killed their family and clan "to test the limits of his power." Sasuke is indeed shown in both the manga and anime to be thinking of that horrible night as he moves to attack Orochimaru. No wonder his disgust is so strong here! 

Although, in the previous chapter, Chapter 343, Orochimaru does think this to himself:

It's scary, to think about how Sasuke could have become someone like Orochimaru if he'd followed the path he set out on until the bitter and grisly end. 

Maybe Tsunade and Hiruzen were right to an extent when they called him twisted? As Hiruzen recalls in Chapter 122:

Yet he isn’t shown doing anything particularly evil until he’s grown up and a jōnin. Hiruzen could very well have been referring to when Orochimaru got a little older, like from chūnin rank onward–when he likely would have gotten a substantial number of kills under his belt. The word “always” here could very well be hyperbolic, as we so often use it when assigning an attribute to someone we’ve known for so long. Indeed, even if we ignore the anime fillers (I take a sundae-bar approach to canon myself; I refer to the manga as the base, as one should, with the companion novels and parts of the anime as toppings), all the flashbacks we’re given in the manga of him as a child portray him as, at the most, quiet, astute, strange, curious, and impressionable. A lot like his son Mitsuki, in hindsight.

Here he is with his teammates during their Bell Test in Chapter 139.

He may be mildly exasperated by Jiraiya and Tsunade’s loudness, but he smiles fondly even as he sighs. Or he could be smiling because he’s proud of himself for passing the test and he thinks it’s funny that Jiraiya is being such a sore loser for failing it, but that’s normal for kids.

Here he is with Hiruzen visiting his parents’ grave in Chapter 344.

This is followed up in Chapter 345 by the following shot.

_“The monster that wished for immortality…”_

Taking context into account, one could interpret this statement—which is more like a sentence fragment—as “This is the monster who wished for immortality. This is where it all began.” He would develop all the malice and ambition and disdain for human fragility _later_. But here in this moment in time, I don’t see any of that, nor do I have reason to believe I should. If he wasn’t thinking, “I miss my parents and I hope to see them again soon,” he wouldn’t be asking Hiruzen when he would be seeing them again. In fact, that's the only question he asks Hiruzen besides his inquiries of the skin he's found at the gravesite. That smile isn’t malicious or power-hungry. It’s soft and sad and hopeful.

Finding that snakeskin, and all the symbolism surrounding snakes, is also probably the inspiration for adopting snakes as his motif. In Japanese culture and mythology, the snake has a strong association with life and death and can be either good or evil. In Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, it is treated as a minor type of dragon (hence Kabuto's boast to Sasuke and Itachi about having ascended from snake to dragon), and it indeed represents wisdom, regeneration, longevity, and renewal. Benzaiten, the goddess of fertility and fortune, is said to employ white snakes as her messengers or avatars. 

Just because he doesn’t talk about the loss of his parents in present time on-panel, unlike most villains in the series when granted the opportunity, doesn’t mean it’s not still a crucial part of his backstory. Jiraiya enforces this in a conversation with Naruto in Chapter 416. It also implies that Orochimaru did open up at least somewhat to Jiraiya about it at one point.

Hiruzen uses the snakeskin they find at the grave to give Orochimaru comfort, as any caring adult would do for a child who is grieving. We can surely criticize him for allowing Orochimaru to pursue a career as a shinobi in the first place, given how much more it would damage him psychologically. We can also criticize him for not properly addressing Danzo, with whom Orochimaru worked as an accomplice and perhaps apprentice for a time. But it’s not his fault Orochimaru would take inspiration from his words about the snakeskin to study forbidden jutsu regarding creation, life, rebirth and immortality—as seen in Chapter 121.

At one time, Hiruzen considered naming Orochimaru his successor, but would end up passing him over for Minato because of Orochimaru’s “twisted ideology” (also from Chapter 121).

Orochimaru would form a grudge against him for this—because it thwarted his future ambitions, of course, but also because he saw it as a betrayal...and, I suspect, because it made no sense to him for Hiruzen to call him “twisted” when he was only doing what he considered normal and effective. Think about it. How can you say in this world with a straight face that experimenting on and killing people or treating them as tools is wrong when it seems like everyone is either doing it or complicit to it? Where exactly are the lines drawn? 

The other major shinobi villages are guilty of many of the same things they, and we, condemn Orochimaru for. For instance, the biggest one: human experimentation. None of the jinchūriki (e.g., Gaara) would exist without it. Madara, a popular villain in this fandom, does his own experimenting on Nagato, Obito, and Hashirama’s corpse to complete his Eye of the Moon plan. Tobirama, the Second Hokage, creates the Impure World Reincarnation Summoning jutsu, which gives us all the zombies during the Fourth Ninja War; Orochimaru and Kabuto merely refine it. 

Orochimaru exploits Sasuke's trauma, anger, and thirst for revenge to tempt him into joining him so he can eventually try to take him as his next vessel. He manipulates Kabuto, Zaku, and Kimimaro in a similar fashion, except all three of them had had literally nothing left when he'd met them. You know who else does that? Madara, to Obito. 

Does any of that make Orochimaru’s actions okay? No, of course not! An action isn't right just because the majority is doing it. But at the same time, it’s difficult to make a moral case against many of his actions in the context of the story’s setting—or at least one that doesn’t ring hollow—when everyone else, including the “good guys,” has done or been complicit in the same or something similar, regardless of motivations.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru’s got his fingers in nearly every pie in the Naruto-verse! He’s in that precarious position where everyone hates him, yet they’re not above calling on him to get a job done. Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, enlists Orochimaru's help in crushing rival village Konoha, at what would turn out to be his own peril. Akatsuki tolerates his presence as long as they can so they can keep an eye on him, and because he's great at what he does. And of course, he works together with Danzo prior to his official defection...and, possibly, a few times afterwards. 

Hiruzen, in turn, has Danzo doing most of the dirty work for him. He wouldn't know the full extent of Danzo's deeds until it would be too late to do anything meaningful about them, many of which he did not authorize (e.g., experiments on Konoha citizens, the Uchiha Clan Downfall). Still, he does admit to letting Danzo soil his hands when it came to making some of the more ruthless decisions for the sake of the village so he wouldn't have to, for which he expresses regret posthumously in the Fourth War arc. While not explored in explicit detail in the text, it's not too far of a stretch to speculate that Orochimaru, at the time, could have come to view Hiruzen with some resentment or contempt for this cowardice. Beneath his more apparent and selfish reasons, of course.

Unfortunately, when Hiruzen found out what his former student had gotten up to—likely because by then Orochimaru had lost all the incentive to remain discreet about his activities—he let his feelings get in the way, thus allowing him to escape, as we see in Chapter 122.

And that seems to be one of the things many antis are ignoring. It’s true that he doesn’t care much about many people, and the way he treats his followers is appalling for what it is—more on that in a bit. But he did have people who loved him, and still does.

See how Jiraiya and Tsunade talk about him at the bar in Chapter 366: 

They’re not happy that he’s gone. If he was always as unspeakably evil as some claim and they had no good relationship with him at any point, they’d be relieved that he’s no longer a problem. Instead, they have a moment of silence for their fallen friend. When he comes back for the Fourth War, Orochimaru and Tsunade would share a similar moment regarding Jiraiya.

Then there’s Tsunade’s dream in the Infinite Tsukuyomi in Chapter 678:

Look how normal they’re all acting (for them), Orochimaru included. He would not be in her dream if Tsunade didn’t still care about him.

To this, you might be thinking, "So what? Plenty of bad people have people who love them. That doesn't mean they love them back." That may be true for some, but...I would not say such is the case, here. Not only has he had people who knew him before he went rogue and cared about him even afterwards, all evidence points to that care being mutual, albeit in an unhealthy way for all parties involved. If it didn’t start out that way, and subtext suggests that it did not, it became so as he became more corrupted.

Here he is with a kunai at Hiruzen’s throat in Chapter 115.

Yet in his very next scene in Chapter 116, we get this:

You must admit, there’s something disturbing about going abruptly from licking the tip of a knife while gleefully announcing your murderous intentions for your old mentor to inexplicably staring at him while fighting back tears.

These panels are especially interesting, and it’s too bad hardly anybody talks about them. Maybe you believe Orochimaru when he said he was just sleepy, hence the tears, but there’s nothing on-panel that supports this one bit. If anything, it contradicts him. He is visibly shaking as he's got Hiruzen in his clutches, which Hiruzen picks up on, before we see the tears in his eyes. He clenches the knife tighter and points the blade at Hiruzen's throat...yet he hesitates, opting instead to stab his own hand and make up a not very convincing excuse for this. He isn't shown yawning in any of these panels. In the anime, he yawns _after_ stabbing himself, not before.

Why didn’t he stick the knife in Hiruzen’s throat right then and there? Why go through all the rigamarole of battling him on the rooftop, summoning Hashirama and Tobirama from the dead and revealing his Body Transfer jutsu to mess with his mind? Had he just slit Hiruzen’s throat when he had the chance, he could have avoided losing his arms and all his ninjutsu.

In fact, why hadn't he killed Hiruzen during their first confrontation all those years ago? He thrashes every other member of his posse and does appear to have roughed him up in the process...yet instead of moving to kill Hiruzen while he's down, he simply runs around him to escape. Making a pause in between. 

I will say it’s kind of crappy for Hiruzen to write him off as having no feelings when every move he makes here suggests the opposite. Granted, Hiruzen must have hardened himself to whatever emotional manipulation Orochimaru might throw at him so he wouldn’t end up making the same mistake of letting him go like he did all those years ago. But still.

Note Orochimaru's windmill/wind analogy. While you and Hiruzen may be right in that morbid curiosity and a desire for knowledge and eternal life drive his activities, I'm not so sure that’s all there is to it. Using deflection and a dramatic flair, he is expressing his disdain and ennui with the state of the country, and the world. He does briefly touch on this in a conversation with Kabuto in Chapter 88.

He has no idea how to change things except to give everyone a good kick in the rear, to stir up the proverbial pot. While his overarching goals are undoubtedly ambitious, they're not exactly focused on a defined endpoint, unlike the goals of Nagato, Obito, and Madara. Orochimaru isn't looking for a specific event to happen in the world. He just wants to see interesting things happen. In light of that, I don't think he would have made for a good final villain for this story, and Hiruzen is correct in that sense when he says Orochimaru "has no goals." It's just that his motivations for Operation Konoha Crush in particular are more personal than he initially lets on. He doesn't do it only for the kicks and giggles. 

Could it be, then, that his obsession with jutsu is as much a means to an end as it is an end in itself? That is, is it a distraction from his personal depression?

Let’s consider other characters he has relationships with. How about Anko?

This is their confrontation in Chapter 50.

We are told that Anko was once a student of Orochimaru’s. He used her as a test subject for the Cursed Seal of Heaven, out of a group of which she was the only survivor, and then reportedly abandoned her. Yet nothing about this exchange supports the notion that he’s currently indifferent to her. There’s the fact that he engages her at all; when they meet, it’s almost like he’s waiting for her. Not only that, but he tells her about Sasuke and his plans for Konoha, teases her in a cruel way, and most surprising of all to me, interrupts her attempt at murder-suicide by pointing out she’s about to use it on a substitute.

Wouldn’t it have made more sense—not to mention been so much eviler—to let her kill herself? Wouldn’t it have made more sense not to tell her anything? Unless he was that confident that it wouldn’t make a difference even if Anko relayed everything to Hiruzen. But then why tell her in particular? Why go out of his way to humiliate her so thoroughly and make her feel as helpless as possible? Moreover, he makes no attempt here to kill her off. In fact, he doesn’t put much effort into their fight at all. Except for the pre-existing curse mark, all of Anko’s injuries are self-inflicted.

It seems to me that Orochimaru has a need for control that crosses into sadism, at least when it comes to certain people. This sadism is most apparent with people he has been close to and considers to have wronged him in some way (typical Scorpio, this one!), like Hiruzen, Anko, and Tsunade.

If you consider the Kaima Capture Mission arc from the anime to be canon, as I do, it helps to explain more in depth what happened between him and Anko. After he gave her the cursed seal and discovered her still alive after the fact, he offers to let her come along with him. Of course, she refuses. He responds by wiping her memory and allowing her to be found by Konoha ninja, instead of killing her to protect his secrets.

So in the end, it wasn’t Orochimaru that abandoned her. It was Anko who left on her own choice. This might help explain why he goes out of his way to be so nasty to her in the Forest of Death.

Perhaps Orochimaru only sees value in her as an experiment, as he sees most people? Or you might argue that he put the seal on her as insurance for his own life in case something was to happen to him.

But both explanations sound incomplete. It doesn’t explain why he doesn’t capture her for further studies. Why not? She survived receiving the Cursed Seal of Heaven. Wouldn’t he want to know why that would be the case? Shouldn’t he investigate? You would think, but we have no indication he’s considered exploring that avenue.

As for the latter interpretation, that would require a much greater length of foresight than he's shown to be capable of. This is, of course, not to say he is _totally_ incapable of thinking about the consequences of his actions or the actions of others before he moves. He does demonstrate some capacity to think ahead when he stops Sasuke from attacking Team Kakashi/Yamato at their first reunion, aware that they share a common enemy in Akatsuki. He also shows it in his early assessment of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship during the Chūnin Exams, recognizing to Kabuto the need to separate the two because Sasuke's bonds with Naruto and the rest of his team were causing him to waver on his desire for vengeance, and therefore power. He also has a solid grasp on psychology and politics, both of which require a certain capacity to understand how other people think and feel. He's the one to tell Tobirama that it was, in hindsight, a bad idea to make the Uchiha solely in charge of law enforcement because of all the things this policy had brought about, however unintended they might have been.

But at the same time, Orochimaru wouldn't stir up as much chaos as he does, in the manner that he does, if he could consistently think far enough ahead to realize or care about how his antics could backfire on him. His capacity for foresight is frequently undermined by his greed, anger, or ego. Again, for instance, if he'd just killed Hiruzen while he still in his grasp, he could have avoided losing function of his arms. For another, he antagonizes Tsunade at almost every moment when they first see each other again, casually bragging about how he killed their teacher, and then acts genuinely surprised when she ultimately rejects his deal and turns on him, as seen in Chapter 163. 

In addition, that is quite a gamble to make! If using Anko's seal as insurance for his own existence was on his mind, he'd have to assume that 1) Anko would survive receiving the seal, and 2) she would live an adequately long time thereafter. This would in the very least require a great deal of confidence in her skills, which contradicts his statement in the Forest of Death on how she supposedly doesn't measure up to Sasuke. 

This much, we can be sure of: she may be a disappointment in his own warped opinion—assuming, of course, he's telling the truth and not merely trying to get under her skin—but he wouldn’t be bothering with her at all if she meant nothing to him. 

In addition to this, the anime shows him letting her in on some of his research, at least as an observer. He lets her look around his lab, shows her a preserved snakeskin–possibly the same one he found at his parents’ grave–and offers to “share” the power to unlock superhuman capacities with her once he discovers it. It puts a knot in my stomach when I remember what he ends up doing to her later.

But in case you don’t consider these bits from the anime canon, allow me to present these panels from Chapter 122:

There’s Orochimaru and Anko on the bottom left. Confusion over the timeline aside, they look as content as they can be. It makes me wonder what all went wrong. What a shame that the manga doesn’t explore their relationship any further than this! As much as I wish we could have gotten more, I do appreciate that the anime at least gave Anko some closure.

How about his teammates?

Jiraiya may be stubborn and on the idealistic side and occasionally act like a dunderhead. But he's not truly stupid, nor is he delusional. Why would he invest so much time in chasing after Orochimaru if he was a truly hopeless cause from the start, such as in this flashback in Chapter 237?

If you asked me, it says a lot that Orochimaru doesn’t simply try to evade Jiraiya. Instead, he charges at him. If he was indifferent, why would he bother engaging with him?

You’re right. Arrogance is probably his greatest weakness. But oftentimes fans mistake him for this emotionless creature who only cares about science and immortality. In reality, he has too MANY feelings, and he's almost as obsessed with the past as he is with the future. He might seem calm and composed and polite and all that on the surface, but actually he has little chill to speak of. What chill he does have flies out the window when things get personal (e.g., his fights with Hiruzen and Tsunade), when something goes egregiously wrong (e.g., losing his arms), when he's on the verge of a breakthrough, or when the Uchiha are involved since he covets their power so much.

At least he has little chill until his revival—another point I’ll get into in a bit.

Speaking of no chill, look at how he approaches Tsunade in Chapters 154, 155, 156, and 157.

He rides up in the most conspicuous way he can possibly pull off—on the top of a giant snake, destroying the castle in the process—then proceeds to poke the wound in Tsunade’s psyche that is the loss of Dan and Nawaki. He even bites his own finger to drip blood in front of her knowing she has a severe phobia of blood. Once again, his sadism flares up! Granted, he probably does this last one to stop her from attacking him and Kabuto as Shizune suggests, but come on!

Notably, he is upfront about what he intends to do should she restore his arms—that is, try destroying Konoha again. There’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t have kept his end of the bargain by resurrecting Dan and Nawaki. Even if he wouldn’t have done it strictly for Tsunade’s sake, it would have at least been a chance to showcase his power. He really is like Sasuke in some ways, harboring resentment and a compulsion to prove himself. A truly confident person feels no need to broadcast their capabilities to others, just saying.

When Tsunade says no to healing his arms, that’s when things REALLY get ugly. From Chapter 169:

Hold on! Orochimaru, you sought her out to heal you! Why are you suddenly trying to cut her to ribbon?! 

This has become personal–not just for Tsunade and Jiraiya, but for Orochimaru, too. If it wasn’t personal before, and I'm inclined to believe it was even if the primary objective was to recover his arms, it’s become even more so, now. He’s overestimated how well he could manipulate her into betraying her principles. He’s pissed that she chooses Konoha over him. In a sense, she’s leaving him behind, again.

That, plus his bitterness about not becoming Hokage, but I get the hunch that his lashing out at her has less to do with that than it does with the above.

The first time he skewers her, on his way to kill Naruto since he's right there and it would obstruct Akatsuki if he did, is clearly an accident. However, the way he attacks her again and again when she keeps shielding Naruto with her body, after he just said he wasn’t trying to kill her… _nobody_ acts like that toward someone they are indifferent to. We see how Orochimaru acts toward people he’s indifferent to. He doesn’t speak directly to them at all, as if they aren’t worth his presence or his breath–or if they once were, they aren’t, anymore. 

He calls her “worthless trash,” something he’s never been shown to say to or about her before. That is not something you say to someone you’ve previously respected out of anything besides bitterness and anger. He’s so enraged that he has to say it twice in a row instead of coming up with something different or more clever to say. 

Orochimaru is really all over the place, here. He goes from not wanting to kill her, to wanting to kill her, to briefly being awestruck enough to ask about that new jutsu of hers before going back to fight her and Jiraiya again. 

He scoffs at the notion that the three were ever comrades in Chapter 170, but his actions, once again, say the opposite.

As if all this isn’t enough, he has this to say after she defeats him in Chapter 171: 

Wait. So if he always had another way to fix his arms, then what was the point of this whole battle, of contacting Tsunade at all? Orochimaru keeps needlessly over-complicating things for himself–partly because of his ego, but also in no small part because of these emotions he is either unable or unwilling to address.

While, again, the primary objective was to heal his arms, I think he sought Tsunade out for similar reasons as the ones for why he sought out Hiruzen. He wanted to see her again and showcase his new powers to her. Maybe get back at her, some–not by killing her like he does with Hiruzen, but by using her trauma against her to manipulate and torture her. It would be killing two birds with one stone. 

Why go out of his way to do that if she never held meaning to him? 

I suspect he had a grudge against her for leaving him behind, regardless of her reasons for doing so. That’s the real reason he attacked her like he did. Not only had he overestimated how well he could persuade her to turn on her principles, but she just abandoned him again by siding with the village he’d come to resent, the same one that had gotten her brother and her lover, and his parents, killed–this time, presumably, right to his face. 

On the subject of Tsunade, here is an important scene that punches another hole in the claim that Orochimaru has always been a bona fide monster. Coming from Chapter 160:

When Tsunade comes to claim Nawaki’s body, Orochimaru becomes cold and insensitive. But notice how he hands her back the necklace she’d given Nawaki for his birthday. 

Also notice his expression and posture before he says anything. 

In the anime, it shows that Nawaki was under his command when he was killed. While we aren’t given the precise circumstances of his death–they could have very well been something out of Orochimaru’s control–the fact remains that his friend’s little brother died on his watch. He’d failed him, her, and himself. He is also shown to be present for Dan's death, watching from a distance as Tsunade falls apart over Dan's bloody corpse. He shows as much quiet distress to this event as he does to Nawaki's death...or at least as much as he can express or will allow himself to express.

But even if you don’t consider that canon, does this look like someone who, at this moment in time, is completely unaffected by the suffering of others? I say no. What he says and how he acts aren’t in sync. 

If that’s not enough, look at these panels from Chapter 372. 

Here, Orochimaru matter-of-factly suggests the team do the “much more merciful” thing of killing the Ame orphans. Of course, Jiraiya is quick to shoot the idea down, opting instead to stay behind to train Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan. From the looks of it, Orochimaru doesn’t press the issue any further.

Orochimaru is not suggesting they kill the orphans to be cruel or macabre. Again, look at his expression. Note how his eyes are hidden behind his bangs just like they are in the flashback in Chapter 160. To him, killing them would be an act of compassion, albeit a twisted one. How would he know how much “pain and suffering” they would endure if he was always and absolutely incapable of appreciating others’ pain and suffering?

Empathy, sympathy and compassion are complicated things. The lack of empathy doesn’t always guarantee a person will act cruelly, no more than the presence of empathy guarantees a person will act kindly. Orochimaru has no reason to hold on to his capacity to connect with others. He loses touch with it as time goes on. One, because it would get in the way of realizing his ambitions; two, because he was taught, both directly and indirectly, that it’s a hindrance to being an effective shinobi; and three, because he fears death and doesn’t know how to cope with loss—if you don’t feel any deep or sustained attachment to things or people, then you won’t get hurt when they’re lost.

Furthermore, look at this exchange with Kabuto in Chapter 154, as they begin their journey to find Tsunade. 

For all his creepy grinning and morbid (and not entirely unfounded) cynicism on display, how would he know what it feels like to lose people if he himself never had attachments to anyone to start with? Notice how his grin falls and his eyes seem to close in the panel where he says, _"People only realize the true value of something after they have lost it."_

My point? Contrary to the claims that they have always been innate to him, Orochimaru’s obsession with power and self-serving views on immortality are actually logical conclusions shaped gradually by his experiences. An absence of love has never been his problem. It might seem that way at a glance, but it's really not. He’s similar to Sasuke insofar as while he’s indifferent to most people in the world and probably thinks he’s above bonds, he develops a few strong ones he can't entirely shake, anyway.

His whole desire for immortality began with the desire to see his dead parents again, and it snowballed from there. He clearly loved his teammates and teacher, and even after they split, the attachment to them lingers–no matter how much he pretends it doesn’t exist or what terrible things he does to them in present time.

Even though he and Anko no longer have a relationship, it’s telling that he opts to spare her multiple times, including after Sasuke uses her mark to bring him back to the physical world, when it might have been the more practical thing to have her die. No, I’m not saying that would have been okay or desirable! I’m speaking from a strictly pragmatic standpoint. Killing her would have been a more secure way to guard his secrets and keep his schemes a surprise.

Orochimaru's problem is that he doesn't love _in the same way_ as other people. If he did at one time, it became corrupted with the rest of his personality, crushed under his ambitions and aversion to loss. 

Which brings me to his more distant relationship with his followers. 

While he is selfish and opportunistic and tends to rub people the wrong way, deliberately or otherwise, it’s not as if he can’t work at all with others. He can even cooperate with those who are technically enemies. At the very least, he doesn’t care if his actions happen to benefit others as long as it doesn’t directly interfere with his own agenda (which, it must be noted, is subject to change). Take this instance in Chapter 309 as an example, where he stops Sasuke from frying Naruto and company.

For another, take Yamato. He’s the reason Yamato has Wood Release, yet he doesn’t seem to mind that he’s serving Konoha as Naruto’s minder. Later, after the Fourth War, Yamato becomes tasked with monitoring Orochimaru’s activities, but again, he doesn’t seem to mind. From Chapter 291: 

In fact, while we're talking about teamwork, he is rarely shown working alone, to begin with. He's more often shown with someone carrying out schemes directly alongside him, typically Kabuto. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a mind of his own or that he isn't capable of independent work; this would be contradicted by his split with Danzo and the Foundation, as well as his attempted ambush of Itachi during his stint with Akatsuki, and, you know, his whole defection from Konoha. But a lot of fans seem to be under the impression that he's a loner, as in one who prefers to be alone, when there's nothing in the text to support that, if it doesn't contradict it. 

He does seem to generally keep his promises. For example, in Chapter 199, he promises to let Gen’yumaru’s clansmen go in exchange for taking his body as his next vessel. We’re not shown him explicitly setting them free, but we don’t see him going back on his word, either.

If he had no intentions of keeping his word, why offer granting a wish, to begin with? In his weakened state after having just come out the winner of a massive brawl to the death, Gen'yumaru’s body is his to take whether he makes any deal with him or not. Orochimaru mentions that it will be enforced as Gen’yumaru’s strong will will “reside within” his subconscious.

Hm! So the souls of his host bodies are integrated into Orochimaru’s subconscious. They are presumably, for the most part, dormant, but have there ever been times when one, some, or all of them reawakened and intruded on his thoughts? Maybe momentarily regained control?

In thinking about this, suddenly Sasuke’s ability to overpower him during the Transference Ritual in Chapters 345 and 346 becomes a little more believable. Orochimaru makes the mistake of taking a boy with a powerful will and equally powerful genjutsu-capable Sharingan directly into his mind.

He truly only has his own greed and arrogance to blame. He shouldn’t have reasonably expected any other outcome.

Though Orochimaru does toy with the idea of kidnapping Sasuke in a conversation with Kabuto, Sasuke ends up going to him on his own free will. Most of his recruits that we get to know are people that no one else seems to want or care for, people who had been dealt an unfair hand by the world and would probably have been dead sooner without his intervention. Orochimaru didn't have to coerce them with force outright. He merely offered what they wanted or needed. They had nothing left to lose when they were recruited. The loyalty Kabuto and others show for him can, at best, only be partially be explained by brainwashing or Stockholm syndrome. It is, to say the least, difficult to effectively brainwash people on such a massive scale. 

Many of them have chips on their shoulders that Orochimaru taps on to get them to do his bidding. They don’t care if they lose their freedom as long as they can receive power from him. Their resentment and lust for power cause as much short-sightedness in them as these do in their master.

See how the Sound Four tempt Sasuke into coming with them in Chapters 178 and 179.

While he is genuinely intrigued by their potential, Orochimaru generally views the majority of his followers as tools and/or experiments. He makes no bones about it to Kakashi in Chapter 69. Their exchange is interspersed with scenes from the battle between Shino and one of Orochimaru’s followers, Zaku, who becomes increasingly desperate not to fail his expectations.

He uses Team Dosu to test Sasuke’s abilities, then later uses Kin and Zaku as “bodies” to summon Hashirama and Tobirama, as revealed in Chapter 123.

He does kill one of his medics in Chapter 153 out of pure rage and agony when all the poor fellow is doing is reminding him to take his medicine–yet he doesn’t lash out the same way when Kabuto tells him the same thing moments later.

But except for the above example, which is a brief yet violent temper tantrum rather than a sick joke he came up with on a whim, Orochimaru generally moves his "pawns" with purpose. If his followers end up dying on missions before they get their reward, well, that’s just too bad. It’s not like they didn’t know the risks going into it. How Oto works is, honestly, not so different than how the other shinobi villages work. The leader gives assignments; it’s up to you whether you accomplish the mission and come back alive. Or maybe, if you care about success and honor, you don’t have a choice to survive at all?

One discernible difference is that Orochimaru plays favorites and is more or less apathetic to everyone else, and he makes no attempt to hide that. Due to his god complex, he treats people in a manner not unlike how many gods do in the myths. He rescues people at their lowest point, has favorites, raises disproportionate hell when he feels slighted for any reason, and moves on to the next “favorite” once the previous one is lost to him. 

He gives his Cursed Seals to followers he either intends to make his next vessel or who he generally deems worthy of them. While Konoha and other villages emphasize unity, duty, and teamwork, there is a stronger emphasis in Oto on power, self-preservation, and self-promotion, even at the expense of the people you work with, if it comes to that. You work together to get the job done, obviously, but any attachment to your teammates beyond this is discouraged—if not directly, then indirectly through the hostile conditions of Oto's environment. Mr. Kishimoto confirms this in his early commentary, when he explained that he created Orochimaru to be "an antithesis to the protagonists' values."

Whatever you might think of the Will of Fire as a philosophy (personally, I think people are making it out to be more sinister than it actually is simply because characters who claim to believe in it fall short of the ideal, misinterpret it, ignore it when it suits them, or abuse it for their own ends), you can't deny that Konoha is overall more cohesive and enduring for it. At least compared to Oto, which falls apart in short order once Orochimaru is gone since everyone in it, whatever their justifications, had always been looking out foremost for themselves, with few exceptions. Oto only becomes a legitimate village after the Fourth War, when Orochimaru reconnects with his humanity. Whatever you might think of its execution or the depth it goes in exploring the idea, the story does acknowledge that neither extreme collectivism nor extreme individualism are good. 

Otherwise, any attempt to condemn Orochimaru for how he uses his underlings in the meantime would sound empty. Amusing or annoying, depending on his mood...but empty, either way.

A lot of his kinder actions (e.g., picking up orphans like Zaku and Kimimaro, rescuing Kabuto from ROOT, saving Tsunade’s life in the Fourth War) are self-serving, for sure...yet is that _all_ they are? It’s not like he kicks his followers to the curb–as in out of his village–or kills them when they fail or because it’s funny to him. Don't confuse him with the Joker.

Take Kimimaro, for example. This is his first appearance in Chapter 199:

While Orochimaru does lose interest in Kimimaro after the latter falls ill and stops paying direct attention to him, he seems to have kept him in the village for continued medical care. He's still investing resources in keeping alive a boy who's beyond salvaging as a vessel when he could have, say, simply taken some samples of his DNA and left him for dead. It’s Kabuto, acting on his own volition, who goads Kimimaro to get out of bed and fetch Sasuke, not Orochimaru. He even comments how low that is in Chapter 201.

This, of course, doesn’t make his dismissal of Kimimaro in Chapter 217 any less callous. 

But he definitely could have treated him worse.

I'm not saying he isn't cruel. Clearly, he is. I am also not arguing that he isn't selfish, manipulative, and toxic, with a dash of anger management issues. Clearly, he is all those things, too. Malicious and occasionally sadistic? Yes, he sure can be! But the point I’m trying to make here is that based on what we’re shown in the text, his cruelty toward his followers, in general, doesn't seem to go quite to the constant, wanton levels you'd think it would to hear antis talk about him. Personal flaws aside, his cruelty is about on par to what we see from Kage of previous generations who also tend to treat the shinobi under them as tools, consciously or not.

Speaking of Kabuto…

Despite the problematic circumstances surrounding their team-up, he mostly gets along and works well with Kabuto, and Kabuto sincerely takes it hard when Orochimaru is put down the first time. As stated earlier, brainwashing alone can't explain all that. With that said, while Kabuto does admire Orochimaru and will defend him in battle, this loyalty is not totally blind. It’s not even totally unconditional. Their exchange in Chapter 88, and Kabuto's subsequent visit to Sasuke's hospital room, are just ambiguous enough to make me believe this to be true.

This ambivalence is hinted at again in Chapter 163, when Kabuto recalls this exchange as he watches Orochimaru and Tsunade meet up to complete their transaction. In the end, he moves to defend Orochimaru from Tsunade's wrath, but the fact that he was thinking about Orochimaru's taunt at all cannot be ignored. Also, according to the databooks, Kabuto wishes to fight Orochimaru (as well as Naruto). It’s really too bad the story doesn’t spend more time fleshing out this side of their dynamic! 

While Orochimaru sometimes doubts his loyalty, and not without good reason, he sure does keep Kabuto close in spite of that. Maybe not as close as some fans think, or else Kabuto wouldn’t have spent all that time spying for and on Sasori, but close enough. He lets Kabuto get away with more sassing and the like than he presumably would let others–with the exception of Sasuke, who I’ll discuss shortly.

A truly symbiotic relationship, if I’ve ever seen one! If Kabuto had indeed considered turning on him at any point, he must have resigned himself to being stuck with him by Part II. What Orochimaru offered him was too much to simply give up, besides. 

This is the moment between them that makes me smile the most, from Chapter 593.

Suigetsu echoes the sentiment of many fans. It’s so easy to assume the worst of Orochimaru. Maybe he could have taken all of Kabuto’s chakra for himself if he really wanted to? But he only takes back his own chakra, undoing Kabuto’s sage transformation in the process. It may be unintentional (or maybe not), but it’s almost as if he is implicitly saying, “You were fine the way you were before you met me. Becoming like me was a mistake.”

Of course, none of that erases what Kabuto reminds us in Chapter 667.

Orochimaru makes no attempt to argue with him.

It’s unclear if they still have any contact after the Fourth Ninja War, but I wouldn’t blame Kabuto if they don’t. When you’ve lived with someone like Orochimaru for so long, someone who you let rewrite your whole identity, you really are better off cutting ties with them so as not to fall back into that again. I like to think Orochimaru comes to respect him enough not to force anything.

Moreover, it’s watching Kabuto’s activities, as well as Sasuke’s changes, that persuades him to rethink his entire approach to the pursuit of knowledge. There’s something to be said for that. We don’t know how long he exists as a disembodied consciousness in Kabuto, or in Anko’s and Sasuke’s curse marks. It could be days, or weeks, or months. However long it is, it’s plenty of time to think about everything that went wrong. What else is he going to do?

He watches Kabuto emulate him exactly. In the beginning of their partnership, as seen in Chapter 584, he promises to help Kabuto find himself if only he’ll be his right hand. He offers up his own MO: collecting a little bit of everything to perfect his own self.

Interesting, how he lets Kabuto keep Nono’s surname and the name she gave him…which, I believe, ties into that scene in Chapter 593 when he takes back his chakra from him. From what we can tell, even though he copies and magnifies Orochimaru’s worse traits (like a typical Pisces), Kabuto still holds onto the name willingly all this time. This is why it makes sense to me that his ability to escape Itachi’s genjutsu hinges on accepting this identity.

The genjutsu Itachi puts Kabuto under, Izanami, isn’t brainwashing. It’s something that is dispelled as soon as Kabuto comes to terms with what he’d unconsciously known all along–that the person he was when he was with Nono is who he really is, or at least who he wants to be.

Although Kabuto does accomplish some things Orochimaru could not, like achieve Sage mode, he is still defeated by Sasuke and Itachi. By contrast, Sasuke decides to learn everything on his own terms, think about everything on his own terms, see everything through his own eyes, and do everything with his own will.

His methods happen to be comparatively more benevolent, as well (well, Curse of Hatred notwithstanding). As selfish, power-hungry, and obsessed with revenge as he was becoming, I find it hard to believe Sasuke turned a blind eye to every horrid thing he saw Orochimaru do while training under him. His speech to him during their confrontation in Chapters 343 through 345 contradicts this. Indeed, he spares every single one of the ninja Orochimaru sics on him during a session in Chapter 343, and he does go out of his way to free all the prisoners at every hideout after dealing with Orochimaru.

Yet he apparently doesn’t despise him enough to stop himself from summoning him back from Anko’s cursed seal in Chapter 593–nor does he hate him enough to cut him back down after he’s done with him.

Orochimaru bears no grudge against Sasuke for turning on him, either. 

You may be right insofar as Orochimaru doesn’t appear quite as remorseful as he ought to be. And you’re right insofar as he has a rather selfish reason to get involved in the Fourth War despite having no real stake in it.

From Chapter 650:

By the way, there’s another clue into his real feelings about Hiruzen, who he continues to fight alongside for the rest of the war. _"Let’s bring back the memories of when I was your student.”_

Anyway, you’re ignoring something he says that’s very important. From Chapter 627:

He IS admitting that he’s wrong about taking things from other people (without using the word directly). He can’t say Kabuto was incorrect to copy him without implicitly accepting that his way was incorrect, in the first place. Why would Kabuto be wrong to copy him, otherwise? Orochimaru was the one to suggest it to him when they first met.

Perhaps it isn’t wrong to him for the exact same reasons WE think it’s wrong, but he’s still acknowledging it’s wrong. That’s a big deal!

Orochimaru becomes intrigued by Sasuke in a different way than he was before. He’s no longer itching to get his body–not that he can, at this point. And contrary to being disappointed in losing Kabuto, he no longer seems interested at all in regaining control of the people who once worked under him, like Team Hebi/Taka. In addition, he seems to have pretty much let go of all his grudges from the past. He even offers to let Katsuyu spray him with acid if she really can’t trust him in Chapter 635.

Not only that, but even though he threatens to “tie up” Karin and Suigetsu with his snakes if they don’t do as he says, it comes off as more of a joke than a genuine threat.

Overall, he’s remarkably more relaxed than he was before. Facing your worst fear may do that for some people. While we can debate if what Sasuke and Itachi collectively did to Orochimaru counts as death, I argue that it functionally is, at least in this universe, since he is conscious of the outside world through certain windows but can’t interact with it.

From Chapter 618:

I’ve seen more than a few theorize and even hope he’s up to his old tricks, like he’s only biding his time until he can make his next big move to crush Konoha or he pushed his son Mitsuki to infiltrate the village as a sleeper agent. I’m not so sure I’d like to see that happen. Actually, I think I’d be pretty disappointed if it did, mostly because it’d be inconsistent with what we’ve seen from him as the story has progressed, and it would show he hasn’t learned from his mistakes. Never mind his morality, or lack thereof. That’d be just plain dumb, on his part.

If he was really still so bent on destroying Konoha, why didn’t he take the chance when he had it? Remember when he, Sasuke, Suigetsu and Jugo paid a visit to Konoha to summon the four previous Hokage? By then, every ninja in the village had gone to fight in the Fourth War. The village was essentially defenseless. It would have taken him no effort at all to decimate it with Sasuke, Suigetsu, Jugo and his quartet of mind-controlled Hokage zombies.

And yet he didn’t.

Why not? For him to pass up such a golden opportunity and then arbitrarily decide 15 years later he wants to do it again…that’d make him an idiot. Mr. Kishimoto may not be the best writer ever, but he’s not THAT terrible.

More often than not, the simplest explanation is the correct one. And the simplest explanation is, as he says, he’d lost interest in destroying Konoha, by then. Instead, his interest had been piqued by the changes Sasuke had undergone since their confrontation. Instead of trying to be the the wind turning the windmill, he would watch Sasuke be that wind.

Compared to most of the characters who are redeemed in the series, Orochimaru is unique insofar as nobody has had to use Talk no Jutsu on him. He decides to change more or less on his own. Granted, it takes Sasuke and Itachi imprisoning him in another dimension to force him to think about it. He can't be persuaded with words. How could he? Words are cheap and meaningless without action to back them up. He needs to literally see for himself the flaws in his thinking from an outside perspective. 

From Chapter 619:

We get this interesting little bit from Chapter 620 where Sasuke questions Orochimaru’s motives for attacking Konoha. He had found out that Itachi's motives for killing their family and clan had been a lie all along. Given how he was thinking of Itachi when he put down Orochimaru the first time, perhaps it makes sense for him to wonder if Orochimaru had been any more honest about his own motives in hindsight? 

Orochimaru doesn’t answer on-panel, but the look on his face and lack of an immediate response makes you wonder. If he had been comfortable answering that question, he would have shared it without pause. He makes that same pause with Kabuto in Chapter 88 when the latter says he seems to be hesitating to act on his plans to crush Konoha and kill Hiruzen. 

After he saves Tsunade’s life in Chapter 635, he reiterates his intentions to keep observing Sasuke’s route and collecting any new knowledge that may come from it, aiding the Allied Forces so this new wind would have a chance to blow. Tsunade herself comments that he has indeed changed, if only a little. And we all know how stubborn Tsunade usually is, hence why that’s a big deal, too. 

Oh, gosh! Stop giving me feels, guys!

But seriously, what he’s saying here is that no matter how strong the affection they may have shared, they could never be “on the same page.” Judging by the look on Tsunade’s face, she is troubled about the implications behind Orochimaru’s words. All she has to say before changing the subject to the current situation is, “Whatever you say…”

The Sannin are just as apt to bring out each other’s worst as they are to bring out each other’s best. Even if they had managed to stay together, would the bad have come to outweigh the good? Is fundamental incompatibility to blame for their breakup, or were they just not willing to make the extra effort to make the team last?

It’s hard to stay friends with people when you fight with them all the time and don’t really communicate, no matter how much you’ve been through together. War may force you to bond quickly and intensely, but how will you hold up when it’s peacetime again? It’s not right to generalize since everyone is different, and I do ultimately prefer to be optimistic.

But looking at these three in particular as they are presented, I have to say, “Not well.” I also need to acknowledge that I can’t control how the characters act: just because I want them to act one way, doesn’t mean they will. They’ve had so many chances to make up and they’ve blown nearly all of them–a mistake that their students from Team 7 would thankfully end up averting.

Finally, one must wonder what he saw while trapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, and whether that also had anything to do with his turning over. From Chapters 677 and 699, respectively:

I find his expressions in these two panels to be telling, even if we never see his vision.

Orochimaru has been helpless once before that we see—namely, when he loses control of his arms thanks to Hiruzen’s curse. But even then, he was more angry and violent than truly helpless. Here, it’s different. It’s not easy to catch him by surprise, if it’s possible to start with. Yet he looks thoroughly bewildered, like he’s just seen something he did not at all expect. There’s something wistful, even a little sad about his expression during the genjutsu and when the genjutsu is undone. 

I’m sure some would say he just saw himself as the Hokage, immortal and all-knowing, his surface goals throughout most of the story. But that sounds too simple. With everything I've discussed at this point, it wouldn't explain the looks on his face. 

My only real complaint regarding Orochimaru’s redemption is that given the seriousness of Orochimaru’s crimes, he isn’t noticeably punished for them. But then I wonder: what would be a good punishment, exactly?

Execution? Orochimaru can’t exactly be killed off easily. He’s proven that over and over again. And even if it was possible, would that be the sensible thing to do after all the help he gives the Allied Forces in winning the Fourth War? Killing an ally doesn’t exactly make you look good in front of other allies, no matter how repulsive the one ally might be.

And then there’s all the science. Orochimaru is useful. He’ll do all the dirty work that everyone else would rather stay out of. It’s just that now it’s much more regulated.

In _Naruto Shippuden_ , Episode 485, as well as in _Sasuke Shinden: Book of Sunrise_ , he explains his new truce with Konoha to Sasuke when the latter questions why he isn’t locked up. This quote from the former source: 

_“I’m not free. And who are you to talk, Sasuke? By all rights, you should be locked up. But even Kabuto, one of the war criminals from the Fourth Ninja World War, is now the director of an orphanage. Of course, compared to me, the likelihood that Kabuto will resort to evil is lower. Don’t you trust the power of Itachi Uchiha? You and I, and Kabuto could just be insurance in case something happens that cannot be countered with common sense. In every era, a maverick appears. When that happens, there may be a need for people like us who possess powers considered to be inhuman. There are things that cannot be protected by righteousness alone. If that’s the case, keeping us around like pets might be mutually beneficial. But…your friend would never even think of such a tactic.”_

I’ve seen people complain about how Naruto doesn’t seem to care anymore about changing the world since he became Hokage. I don’t believe that. What really happens is that he grows up and realizes that fulfilling all those grand promises he made when he was 12 to 13 years old and didn’t know any better would not be as easy as he’d thought at the time. First of all, he’s only one person. It takes many people to change the world. Second, generations of mistakes are not going to be undone in just 15 years, and Naruto has been Hokage for far less than this.

Third, you can’t get things done on ideals alone. You need to be pragmatic, as well. Sometimes you need to compromise. And sometimes pragmatism and compromise mean forming an alliance with a person you once–not without justification–tried to blow up in a fit of rage. It’s not just about letting go of hatred. It’s also a matter of practicality.

And for all we know, Naruto also spares Orochimaru out of respect for Jiraiya’s wishes, for both Orochimaru and the world at large.

Maybe that really _is_ the best that can be done about him?

Orochimaru isn’t free anymore. Yamato is always watching him, which he likely would not be doing if he truly did not wish to do it; neither Kakashi nor Naruto would force anything like that on him. Most people still can’t stand or trust him. With Jiraiya gone, he’s lost all future chances to reconcile with him, and it still doesn’t look like he’s patched things up with Tsunade even with her acknowledgment of his changes. After all, even if he hadn't been honest about his real motives for doing it, he did still kill their teacher for no objectively justifiable reason. Hiruzen was flawed as a leader, teacher, and person, but that doesn't make him deserving of what he got. On top of that is the twisted manipulation Orochimaru tried to pull on Tsunade to make her heal his arms. Even with all his signs of growth since these incidents, is it really any surprise she'd rather keep him at least at arm's length?

On the other hand, he does appear to be on genuinely better terms with Team Taka. He treats them with far more respect compared to how he was before he was sealed. He lets Karin keep Sarada’s umbilical cord without kicking up the fuss he might have before for all the genetic potential it holds.

Except for his creation of Mitsuki, which he likely got consent for, he's not shown experimenting on live people anymore. Shin Uchiha from _Naruto Gaiden_ is one of his older “experiments” from the past, not someone he’d been involved with recently. As far as we know about the Living Corpse Reincarnation jutsu, his last host body is a White Zetsu clone that he possesses to escape being killed upon releasing the Dead Demon Consuming Seal for Sasuke. The Zetsu clone is made of Hashirama's cells, which are known to have many useful medical purposes, including regeneration. I grant you, this hasn't exactly been confirmed in the text, but it's possible that he hasn't had the need to transfer into another body since this has happened. Naruto would have surely made a greater stink about his new youthful appearance if there was something more sinister afoot. There's little to no way he wouldn't know of it when Orochimaru is supervised as much as he is. 

And he has developed a new appreciation, and a far less destructive one, for the natural development of people. I wonder if this is what he’s referring to when he witnesses Karin pull out the Adamantine Attacking Chains in Chapter 663?

_“Now I finally understand…”_

Still, as ambiguous as his thoughts are in the above case, we do most clearly see it in his interactions with Mitsuki and his thoughts regarding him in _Boruto_. While I don’t agree Orochimaru has become good, _per se_ , I do believe what changes he’s made are real. He does genuinely love Log and Mitsuki, and he does want to see Mitsuki develop and follow his own free will. This is all confirmed in the oneshot, "Naruto Gaiden: The Road Illuminated by the Full Moon" (at this time, the panel below is unfortunately the best image I can find from it). 

He just has a very, very, very screwed-up way of showing it. I certainly wouldn’t call him a better parent than Naruto or Sasuke, like I've seen some people do here online. As a fan of his, even I have to call that notion ridiculous; it's ignorant at best and hypocritical at worst. But I'll leave it at that. 

So far, there is nothing in the manga nor the anime adaptation of _Boruto_ that would give us reason to suspect otherwise. Except, _maybe_ , the seal he's placed on Mitsuki's heart. But even then, as twisted as it is that it exists at all, there's a purpose behind it that's hard to argue against. The seal is supposed to make Mitsuki self-destruct in the dire event Mitsuki was to have been captured or gone rogue, so no one can learn the secrets of his creation or use them for their own ends. 

Other than that, if we haven't seen any hints of foul play by now, it's reasonable not to expect it any longer. 

Besides, in his current position, even if he wanted to try anything, he’d have to answer to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, who have all since surpassed him and his former teammates. His immortality doesn’t mean he can’t still get his butt kicked by those three, who’d probably do a worse number on him than even Hiruzen did. Heck, I should count Shikamaru as four! We all saw how ruthless he was with Hidan, another immortal shinobi.

My conclusions?

Orochimaru wasn’t always evil. He’s as much a product of his time as he is an abnormality. But his abnormality doesn’t make him any less human. While the manga could have done more to flesh out his side of the story—let's be honest, we could make this same complaint about everyone in the cast who isn't Naruto or Sasuke—Orochimaru is much richer as a character, and way more complicated, than he gets credit for based on what details we are given, great and small. And by the standards set in-universe, the changes in his character between _Naruto_ and _Boruto_ aren’t that far-fetched, after all.

It’s no wonder not many fans like him; he’s definitely one of the messier characters. But he’s the reason I got into _Naruto_ in the first place, and he’s still my favorite. I hope I was able to at least provide a more comprehensive view of his character and its evolution.

And please, enough with the rape and pedophile jokes. They weren't funny then, they aren't funny now, and they're never going to be funny. Orochimaru is a lot of things, but "sexual predator" is not one of them.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk! 


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